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But how can we conceive a thing having existence without
having magnitude?
We have only to think of things whose identity does not depend on
their quantity- for certainly magnitude can be distinguished from
existence as can many other forms and attributes.
In a word, every unembodied Kind must be classed as without
quantity, and Matter is unembodied.
Besides quantitativeness itself [the Absolute-Principle] does not
possess quantity, which belongs only to things participating in
it, a consideration which shows that Quantitativeness is an
Idea-Principle. A white object becomes white by the presence of
whiteness; what makes an organism white or of any other variety
of colour is not itself a specific colour but, so to speak, a
specific Reason-Principle: in the same way what gives an organism
a certain bulk is not itself a thing of magnitude but is
Magnitude itself, the abstract Absolute, or the Reason-Principle.
This Magnitude-Absolute, then, enters and beats the Matter out
into Magnitude?
Not at all: the Matter was not previously shrunken small: there
was no littleness or bigness: the Idea gives Magnitude exactly as
it gives every quality not previously present.
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